Commonly, ice skates are sharpened or touched-up using a rotating grinding wheel of a grinding machine. The grinding machine takes a sizeable cut out of the blade each time it is used to sharpen the blade which reduces the useful life of the blade. The blades become excessively sharp increasing the risk of injury. Also, the cost of using the grinding machine limits the number of times a skater can affordably sharpen his or her skates.
An alternative to the grinding machine is to use hand held sharpening tools. These tools have a stone that is moved back and forth lengthwise along the skate blade. The stone sharpening surface quickly wears or becomes dirty whereby the tool has to be replaced.